


Checking In

by Fanforthefics (StormDancer)



Series: Hockey Tumblr Oneshots [30]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-27 18:25:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16707712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/Fanforthefics
Summary: Tyson is pretty sure that his team has the wrong idea. He's not sure what idea they have, but worry definitely wasn't what he was expecting when Gabe kissed him in front of all of them.





	Checking In

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: a kiss... out of habit. 
> 
> Don't know, don't own, etc.

It starts because of a Stars game, so Tyson thinks he’s safe in telling Jamie that really it’s all his fault. He’s not sure how Jamie will take that, exactly, but he is sure it’s true.

It’s a fucking great game. They skyrocket out of the gate and just don’t stop, and it’s just one of those games where everything clicks, even without Nate, who’s stuck home on IR. And then Gabe gets into a fight, too, which really just makes it more clear that it’s Jamie’s fault. 

Because after, when they tumble off of the ice and into the locker room, Gabe is alight with it, big and loud and affectionate like he always is after a good game. Tyson’s feeling it too, though he makes sure to roll his eyes as Gabe prances around in just his towel, telling the whole team how much he loves them. 

“Get off, wow,” Mikko laughs, shoving Gabe away as he tries to hug him. Gabe presses a loud, smacking kiss to both of his cheeks before he lets himself be pushed away, grinning. 

It’s a good look–Gabe always tries to be cheerful in the face of losses, but Tyson of all people knows how he looks when the cameras aren’t on, when the team isn’t around. It’s nice to see him like this, taking on the joy of the team. 

Also, the sex is really fucking great when he’s like this. Or, the sex is always great, because they are really good at sex, but Tyson is looking forward to how Gabe gets when he’s like this, a little bossy but a lot generous. He’s maybe getting changed faster than he would, so he can get out ahead of Gabe and no one will question that he’s not going to his room of the hotel. If he didn’t think it would get them caught, he would be dragging Gabe into a closet somewhere, irony be damned. 

“Gabe!” Josty whines, blushing, when Gabe gives him a kiss too, ‘for the game winner!’ 

Tyson rolls his eyes again. “Wow, Landeskog. Stop harassing rookies and put some pants on.” 

Gabe turns to him. If he was hot just bouncing around the locker room, it’s almost overwhelming like this, with all that infectious, twinkly joy and energy turned on Tyson, leavened by just a hint of something predatory that makes Tyson really happy he’s mostly dressed. He wonders how subtly he can hint to Gabe that the faster he gets dressed, the faster they can get somewhere private. 

“And you!” Gabe goes on, sauntering up to Tyson. Tyson is definitely red, because not even regularly fucking can stop that from happening. Somewhere, he can hear sniggering, because his teammates are all assholes. They just think Gabe is being flirty and Tyson’s a mess, probably. “That was a fucking beauty assist.” 

“It was,” Tyson agrees, because it was. He holds out a fist without looking, and Kerfy bumps it, because he’s a bro like that.

“Does the game winning assist get a kiss too?” EJ asks, because he’s a dick. Tyson flips him off on principle–it’s not that he minds Gabe kissing him, obviously, but EJ thinks he’s just making fun of Tyson’s crush, or something, which is a really dick move. 

“I don’t–” Comphy starts, sounding concerned, but Gabe’s ignoring him. He tilts Tyson’s face up with one big hand. 

“Seems only fair,” he agrees, grinning, and leans down, and–Tyson’s flustered, and he’s not sure what Gabe’s going for, and maybe he turns his head or maybe Gabe was never aiming for his cheek, but somehow their lips meet. And then–well, they’ve gotten really good at kissing in the last few months, and Tyson’s had an engrained patterns of about 28 years that if you’re going to do something, you should do it well, and Gabe’s got about as much of that, and, well. 

It ends up being maybe more than a nothing kiss. Definitely more than a casual kiss between bros. Maybe more like what they are, which is two people who have been dating for a few months and are starting to get pretty serious even though they haven’t talked about it or told the team yet because they’re still feeling their way out and Tyson’s maybe a little not into forcing that conversation because he doesn’t entirely know what Gabe will say or why Gabe hasn’t forced the conversation yet. 

All of which only goes through Tyson’s head when they separate, and the locker room is silent, and Gabe is looking at Tyson with big, suddenly concerned eyes. 

“Oh, fuck,” Tyson says, loud, and then he grabs his bag, throws it over his shoulder, and gets the fuck out of there. 

* * *

“Um, T-Bear?” Nate asks, as soon as he picks up. “Why exactly is EJ texting me SOS?” 

“Because it’s an SOS situation,” Tyson replies. He’s safely ensconced in his hotel room, because he was not waiting for the team bus right now. He hasn’t even dared look at the rest of the messages waiting on his phone that had accumulated since he got into the Uber. “I kissed Gabe.” 

“Yeah, I know, you still tell me about each time. Which you really don’t need to.” 

“I don’t tell you about each time, just highlights!” Tyson protests. He needs to debrief with someone. “And. It was in the locker room.” 

Nate goes quiet. “As in–” 

“Everyone saw, yeah. Then I bailed, because I freaked and I couldn’t tell what Gabe was thinking, and now–” 

“If you had just told everyone–” 

“Not helping!” Tyson snaps. He knows. “But what if everyone–” 

“No one hates you,” Nate cuts him off. “Look, EJ’s first text was asking if you were okay. And to tell you he’s sorry, whatever that means.” 

“Yeah, he should be,” Tyson mutters. He doesn’t really think–like, not the main guys, they’re all great, but you never know. And. It had been very quiet in that locker room, before he’d left. “Nate, I can’t get traded, I just got a house, I don’t want to be Dutchy–”

“If anyone gives you guys shit, they’ll be the Dutchy,” Nate retorts, fast and fierce and Tyson smiles at his phone, even through his panic. “Look, Tys. Even if it goes bad, you’ve got two thirds of the league’s top line for sure on your side. And Mikko will be, so that’s three out of three. Not to mention–” 

“It’s not just that.” Tyson takes a breath. “It’s not just, like, being cool with me liking guys. It’s–what if Gabe didn’t want it out? What if they’re not okay with that?” 

“Um, trust me, they’ll be okay with that.” 

He sounds very sure. “What?” Tyson asks. “Why?” 

“I–” There’s a knock on Tyson’s door, and he jumps. Fuck. What if it’s Gabe? What if it’s Gabe coming and saying they had a good run, but now it’s public and of course it’s over. Or he doesn’t want to mess up the locker room or some shit like that, so they’re done. Or– 

The knock comes again. “I’ve got to go,” He tells Nate. 

“You’re good. Really,” Nate tells him, and hangs up. 

Tyson goes to his door, takes a breath, and opens it. 

It is a tall blonde man. But not the one Tyson was expecting. 

“I’m sorry,” EJ says, brushing in past Tyson. Tyson steps back, confused. “That was–I shouldn’t have encouraged him, I’m sorry.” 

“What?” 

“It was a dick move, and I told him that,” EJ goes on. “I just meant it to be a joke, he took it too far, because, Landy.” 

“What?” Tyson asks again. 

“Kissing you like that,” EJ explains. He looks really concerned now. “Without even your permission, and when he knows how you feel–it wasn’t something he should do. Not as a person. And definitely not as captain. I really thought better of him.” 

“How I feel?” Tyson echoes. He feels like he missed something here. EJ looks actually concerned, which is wrong. EJ isn’t a nurturer. 

“You aren’t subtle, Tys. I haven’t said anything because it wasn’t relevant, and, well, I was planning–anyway, I know. How you feel about him.” EJ looks abashed, standing in the center of Tyson’s hotel room. “And I shouldn’t have goaded him on. That was him leading you on, even more than he usually does, and it wasn’t cool.” 

Oh. Oh, EJ thinks– “Oh, no, it wasn’t–” But then Tyson cuts off before he explains what is happening here, that Gabe isn’t leading him on because they’re dating. But–are they? What is he supposed to say? Would Gabe want to play it off as just Gabe being a dick? He doesn’t want to say anything he can’t take back–

“No, it was,” EJ tells him, and claps him on the shoulder. He looks almost–fatherly. It’s mostly horrifying. “And I’ll make sure he knows it. Let me know if you need anything.” 

“Okay?” Tyson says, and then EJ claps his shoulder again, and goes to the door. “Um, EJ–” 

“It’ll be okay,” EJ tells him, and opens the door. Tyson strongly considers going after him to set him straight–but EJ’s barely out of the door before Josty, Kerfy, and Comphy come tumbling in. 

“Yes, come in, please,” Tyson says, stepping back so they don’t step on him. 

“Thanks,” Kerfy tells him, breezing past, a plastic grocery bag in each hand. “You doing okay?” 

“I’ll punch him,” Comphy offers. He puffs up his chest a little bit, saying it. It’s very cute. “I will. That was fucking cruel, it’s like he was taunting you–” 

“He wasn’t taunting,” Josty protests, which gets him two sets of glares from his housemates. Tyson is mainly still confused. This is not the reaction he was expecting. It’s not bad, for sure, but–confusing. Josty goes a little red. “I mean, maybe he just thought it would be funny.” 

“Tyson!” Kerfy hisses scoldingly, which is a little existentially confusing. 

“Yeah, super funny,” Comphy growls at Josty. “It’s super funny to kiss someone you know has feelings for you as a joke. Fucking hysterical.” 

Josty’s red now. “Things can come off wrong,” he mutters. Tyson is even more confused, and kind of concerned. 

“Um. Are you guys okay?” he asks. 

“Yes!” Josty tells him, too fast. 

“For sure,” Comphy agrees, nodding quickly. 

“Yeah, totally,” Kerfy rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Tyson is definitely worried. “But this is about you and how Gabe’s a dick.” 

“I mean, he’s not–” Tyson feels a little bad, like he should be defending Gabe’s good name, but he’s still not sure why or how. He hadn’t planned for this. He hadn’t planned for anything, admittedly–the whole point of the not telling the team plan was to avoid having to make plans for when they told the team-but definitely not this. “Well, he–” 

“You don’t have to defend him,” Comphy tells Tyson, fierce. “You shouldn’t. It’s his deal.” 

“Okay,” Tyson agrees. Josty is definitely throwing some sort of  _looks_ at Comph, that is only sort of solidifying Tyson’s view that this is not really entirely about him. “I–” 

“Anyway,” Kerfy cuts him off, with the sort of long-suffering look Tyson associates with having to put up with his roommates for too long. “We have booze–” he holds up one bag, ”and ice cream–” he holds up the other,   
“whichever you need.” 

Tyson opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. What the hell is he supposed to say? 

“Both it is,” Josty decides, and grabs one of the bags from Kerfy. 

The not-really rookies anymore keep Tyson purposefully distracted for a while with their offerings and shitty TV, which is nice even though they don’t know what they’re actually distracting him from. But he’s just as happy not to think about whatever discussion he’s going to have with Gabe soon as he is to not think about his…broken heart? Whatever it is they’re worried about him having. 

Then there’s another knock at Tyson’s door. Tyson’s making internal bets with himself about who’s coming next–his money’s on Barbs, because that somehow feels on brand–but when he opens the door, he blinks. 

“Hey,” Gabe says. He looks tired, like all that bright joy he’d carried with him a few hours ago was drained out of him. “I think we should talk.” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

“He doesn’t have to talk to you,” Comphy interrupts, leaning over Tyson’s shoulder. Gabe looks surprised but not shocked, though his lips twitch as Kerfy and Josty lean over Tyson’s shoulders too. 

“It’s okay,” Tyson tells Comphy. “We need to. Out, all of you.” 

“Are you sure?” Comphy asks. “You can have more time, if you want–” 

This fucking with Gabe’s authority is absolutely not what Tyson wanted. “Yes I’m sure,” he says firmly. “Gabe and I will get it all sorted out. Now shoo, the grown ups are talking.” 

“I thought you were staying?” Gabe jokes, which gets him a baleful glare from Comphy but a snort from Kerfy. 

“Fuck off,” Tyson tells him. “Thanks for everything, guys,” he tells the three men filing out around him. 

“Let us know if you want us to come back,” Kerfy tells him. 

“Or like, call Nate or something for you,” Josty adds.  

“I can call him on my own, thanks,” Tyson says, but it is sweet of them, so he smiles. Then he lets Gabe in, and closes the door behind him. 

Gabe surveys the ice cream containers and beer bottles open on the spare bed. “Looks like you had a party,” he points out, even. 

“Yeah, I think I was supposed to be drowning my sorrows? Or something?” Tyson shrugs. Gabe’s just–standing there, and he still wants to kiss him, properly, and shove him into the non-ice cream full bed, and then probably have melted ice cream after they fuck which Gabe will make fun of him for but also partake in. He wants it to go back to a few hours ago when he knew what was happening. 

He drums his fingers against his thighs, because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. “Um, I think they think that I’m a mess because you kissing me, like, messed with my head about my unrequited crush on you? Or something like that?” 

“No kidding,” Gabe agrees. He’s still standing a little stiffly. “Everyone’s been yelling at me. Willy spent half an hour lecturing me about compassion and empathy.” 

“Sounds terrible.” 

“It really was. I agreed to go to yoga to make it stop.” 

Tyson tilts his head. “People get really flexible at yoga, right?” 

Gabe’s lips twitch. “You saying I’m not flexible now?” 

“I’m just saying that people can always improve with training,” Tyson throws back, then remembers they’re having, like. A talk. “Um. But. You didn’t just tell them? In the locker room?” 

“After you ran out of there like I was radioactive?” Gabe snipes back. “No, somehow I didn’t think that would be believable. If you even wanted me to. You didn’t tell anyone that I wasn’t as much of a dick as they all apparently think I am?” 

“I didn’t know what you wanted!” Tyson throws at him. It’s not his fault, for sure. “I didn’t want to tell everyone without asking you!” 

“Then you could have asked me!” Gabe grabs for Tyson’s phone, holds it up. “We have this magic new technology, haven’t you heard? It’s called texting.” 

“You could have texted me too.” 

Gabe rolls his eyes, and reads off the lockscreen. “’You okay?’ That’s the first one, as soon as you left. Then there, ‘What do you want me to tell the team?’ and ‘seriously are you okay’ and ‘Barrie pick up your damn phone’, and then Nate texted to let me know you were alive, which was great that you told Nate that before, I don’t know, your boyfriend.” 

“I know!” Tyson does, okay. He knows. He just, “I wasn’t sure–I didn’t want you to say this was it.” 

“What?” Gabe looks honestly confused. “Why would I say that?” 

“Because–you were so sure we shouldn’t tell the team when we started,” Tyson explains, waving his hands like that’ll help. “And then you didn’t say anything else and we haven’t talked about where it’s going and you looked worried after you kissed me and I didn’t want you to say that you’d rather it be over than say you were with me, okay?” Tyson crosses his arms and glances down at his feet. “And I definitely didn’t want to hear you’d rather just keep me a secret.” 

“Where has everyone gotten this idea that I’m such a shitty person?” Gabe asks, snippy, and then his bare feet come into Tyson’s view. Then his hands slide down Tyson’s shoulders, land on his forearms where they cross. “Come on, Four. You know I’d shout it from the rooftops.” 

Tyson looks up. Gabe’s smiling at him, a little exasperated and a lot fond–the smile he saves just for Tyson. “You’ve never said that.” 

“Yeah, because I wasn’t sure what you wanted.” Gabe tugs at Tyson’s arms, easing them apart, away from his chest. “I didn’t want to push you, either. I know you were scared about it, and I was happy with how things were.” 

“I wasn’t scared,” Tyson mutters. Gabe ignores him. 

“But Tys–if you want a better romantic gesture than a kiss in the locker room, I’ll do that.” Gabe’s eyes have a certain glint to them, something just this side of manic, and Tyson has a sudden flashback to what it felt like to hear him read that valentine on camera–and that was even before they’d started anything. 

“No, you don’t,” Tyson informs him. “I can embarrass myself plenty, I don’t need you to help.” 

“Are you saying you’re embarrassed of me?” Gabe jokes, but Tyson knows him well enough to see the way he glances just a little bit away from Tyson. 

“Yeah, clearly, you’re the worst. How could I ever date someone with such a big head,” Tyson teases back, and Gabe grins. Tyson flips their hands, so their fingers are intertwined. “Now. Before you started this whole thing, I was really looking forward to getting you alone.” 

“Funny. I thought the game winning assist deserved a better reward than just a kiss.” 

“Don’t tell Josty what happens to game winnners, I think he’d combust,” Tyson tells Gabe, and then Gabe laughs and tugs him forward to kiss him, quick and easy, before Tyson gets sick of that and makes it into what he’d been thinking of in that locker room and pulls him down onto the bed. 

* * *

Tyson makes sure the locker room is mostly full after practice the next day–a practice spent with what felt like the whole team doing their level best to keep Gabe and Tyson apart–then catches Gabe’s eye. Gabe smirks, then nods, and strips off his shirt because of course he does. 

“Hey, Landeskog,” Tyson calls. The room goes very quiet, and very tense. “I think I owe you something from yesterday.” 

“Yeah?” Gabe asks. He’s looking very smug already, because the man cannot act to save his life. 

“Yeah,” Tyson agrees, strides over, and yanks Gabe down to kiss him, hard. Gabe kisses him back, so Tyson slips him some tongue, and then of course Gabe ups the ante by swinging him around and dipping him, which makes Tyson have to stop kissing him to laugh. 

“Let me up, you fucker!” He tells Gabe, laughing. Gabe grins down at him for a second, as lit up as he had been last night–then tugs him back to his feet. “For the record,” he tells Gabe, into the still silent room. “I still think matching dick pics would have been a better way to tell them we’re together.”

Silence for another beat, then, “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for convincing him otherwise,” G tells Gabe, and it breaks the tension into laughter and yelled questions. 

“Seriously?” That’s EJ, louder than any of them. “Seriously? How long?” 

Tyson and Gabe look at each other, shrug. “Months,” Gabe says. 

“Well, we first hooked up–” 

“Months!” EJ squawks. “Months!” 

“Um, yeah? Why?” 

“I had–there was a plan!” EJ grabs at his hair, looking like he’s about to pull it out. “It had ten steps, and it was going to get you to a happy ever after, and now–months!” 

“Sorry, buddy,” Gabe tells him, as Tyson turns into Gabe’s shoulder to laugh and also because he needs to grab his phone to text Nate because Nate definitely knew about this shit. Gabe’s arm wraps easily around his waist. 

As Tyson turns, he catches sight of Comphy glancing at them, then looking down at his feet, then over at where Josty’s talking with Kerfy.  

“You know,” Tyson suggests, turning back to EJ. “I think we might be able to adapt that plan.” 

EJ tilts his head. “I’m listening.” 

“I’m not,” Gabe announces. 

“Yes, you are,” Tyson tells him, then goes back to EJ. “Okay. So fill me in. How’s this going to work?” 

Gabe sighs, but Tyson feels the light brush of something against his temple–probably lips, because Gabe is a sap and this is what he’s getting himself into. Tyson grins, and rests his hand on Gabe’s wrist, and listens to EJ’s insane plan that they are totally going to make work out, because this sort of happiness deserves to be shared. 

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


End file.
